Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
www.elsevier.com/locate/tele
Pleonastic exclusion in the European Information
Society
Katharine Sarikakis a,*,1, George Terzis b
a
b
Department of Language and Media, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Rd,
Glasgow G4 0BA, UK
Department of Communication, Katholike Universiteit Brussel, Vrijheidslaan 17-1081 Brussels, Belgium
Abstract
The dramatic changes in communication technology and the media this last decade of the
century have inspired enthusiasm among business community, policy makers and academic
scholars. Visions of prosperity and social wealth have become the core arguments for defending the strong emphasis on the Information Society ``project''. Europe is working hard
towards research and development but is it taking the right way?
A lot can be said about the di€erences of the communication infrastructure between the rich
North and the poor South (Vincent, 1998), but not much attention is paid to the situation in
the countries of the Periphery. This paper intents to focus speci®cally on this area and to take
a look at the Greek experience. Greece is an EU member State but at the same time is part of
the Periphery standing inbetween the rich industrialised North and the poor developing South.
The paper argues that, despite the citizensÕ needs and wishes, the promotion of the European
Information Society (IS) in Greece is characterised by disproportionality. Another kind of
capital di€erence between groups with di€erent socio-economic status is emerging. The
`Knowledge-Gap' phenomenon becomes evident in that a high percentage of the population is
excluded as users of the new media, due to reasons related to their educational and ®nancial
status. Additionally, a new phenomenon of ``pleonastic exclusion'' is taking place, as a result
of the enormous numbers of channels of communication, which forces audiences to a continuous selection-exclusion of information sources.
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1203-838207; fax: +1203-838667.
E-mail addresses: k.sarikakis@coventry.ac.uk (K. Sarikakis), George.Terzis@Kubrussel.ac.be
(G. Terzis).
1
Present address: Coventry School of Art and Design Communication, Culture and Media Group,
Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK.
0736-5853/00/$ - see front matter Ó 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 7 3 6 - 5 8 5 3 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 2 9 - 5
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K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
The paper investigates the consequences of the IS as it is currently planned departing from
data of a local level, exploring the Greek experience, and relating them to issues of global
signi®cance such as the emergence of new classes. Ó 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
1. Introduction
In the following pages we are going to explore the ways in which, new technologies applied under the current circumstances, with the emphasis placed on their
marketability, contribute towards the reinforcement of inequalities in the acquisition
of knowledge. In order to appreciate the extent of the signi®cance of information
technologies in the global economy, we brie¯y examine their various applications
and their complications in Greece. By projecting the main issues of concern on the
European policies we attempt to show the implications of the application of ICTs on
society. We are looking at the current policy initiatives on a European level that
attempt to regulate the emerging Information Society, examining the extent to which
they are able to cover public interests and in regard to the problems mentioned here.
We then take a step further and discuss the implications of the new conditions on a
social and political level and we give an account of how the production and regeneration of inequalities in accessing and processing information results in the
creation of a dual society that uses knowledge as the nominator of economic and
political power. Di€erences based on inequalities of access to information are created
in multiple levels. Based on FortnerÕs de®nition we call the exclusion from information sources in general ``pleonastic exclusion''. Fortner makes a distinction between three kinds of exclusion: ``impedient excommunication'' on the grounds of
economics, ``pleonastic excommunication'' based on an overload of information,
and ``ascetic excommunication'' as exclusion by choice (Fortner, 1995). We use the
term ``pleonastic'' in its double meaning as a continuous, repeated exclusion due to
economic and educational factors on the one hand and as an exclusion based on the
overload ± pleonasm ± of information.
2. Do we need the European Information Society? Great ± and not so great ±
expectations
A wonderworld of new opportunities and dynamics driven by technological advancement called ``the information revolution'' is the new myth, that dominates
economic and political life in Western societies. Technological capacity, such as
Research and Development (R&D) and human resources necessary for technological
innovation and utilisation of the latter constitute the core pattern of global economy
(Castells, 1996, p. 103). Within a rhetoric of euphoria about new opportunities, vital
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
107
issues of employment and wealth arise. For the unemployment stricken European
Union (EU) the ®rst opportunity seen in the new technologies is the creation of new
jobs. According to some estimates IT industries will be the biggest employer of the
next century: today in the EU alone there are 500,000 vacant positions for IT, while
during the three years between 1995 and 1997 another 300,000 new jobs were created
in the ®eld of information systems. For example, the mobile phone industry claims to
o€er an additional 150,000 new posts by the year 2002 while 300,000 new jobs are
expected to be created in the EU in the audio±visual sector by the year 2005. According to Datamonitor almost one million people are working in telephone service
centres in the EU. The demand for this kind of service is so high that 40% of French
companies are planning to introduce it. This is regarded as a very dynamic sector of
the economy which already represents 5% of the GDP of the EU and it is developing
with a rate 5% higher than the average of the EU economy. (Tetradia Oikonomias,
1999). According to the European Commission there are two to three million EU
citizens who are teleworking today, a number that is estimated to reach 10 to 20
million by the year 2005.
Another aspect is that teleworking can also change the traditional concept of the
oce, by saving time, space and ultimately money, while there is a positive e€ect for
the reduction of trac and pollution, since employers will not need to be physically
present at their work. Furthermore, information technology eventually allows the
development of better forecast and prevention systems from natural disasters, the
development of `smart' environmentally friendly cars or even the better ± more sophisticated designing of trac. Other opportunities for better living standards would
include improved services for physically challenged people, and those who live in
remote areas and are unable to reach several services. Moreover, optimists of electronic democracy argue that the IT promotes the trust of the citizens to the public
sector and improves the services that the latter can o€er. The democratic institutions
will be empowered. Mechanisms such as elections and votes count will be faster and
more accessible to the public. More citizens will be able to participate in the decision
making process which would lead to the developing of a new model of democracy
(Tetradia Oikonomias, 19 April 1999). For peripheral, developing countries like
Greece that lack a strong economic structure based on heavy industry or minerals or
a competitive agricultural sector in the EU, the opportunity that IS o€ers for the
development of a Service sector would be highly bene®cial.
3. What kind of IS do we really need? The reality of impedient excommunication
Legitimate questions are raised as to the customer and companies pro®le of the IS.
Do Small and Medium Enterprises bene®t from the IS? Is the IS a tool in the hands
of citizens and companies from developing or peripheral countries? How does the
public sector bene®t from that, if at all? The data for Greece does not o€er support
for any positive claims. It is often argued that the convergence between information
108
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
technologies and telecommunications will have a similar e€ect in social life and
economy as that of the railways in the 19th Century. According to the Internet
Industry Almanac, at the end of 1998, Internet users numbered more than 147
million around the world, more than twice the number of those in 1996 (61 million).
The number of users is estimated to reach 320 million by the year 2000 and more
than 720 million by 2005. By that time the use of Internet in the world is expected to
be as widespread and common as the use of cars (Internet Industry Almanac, 1998).
But who is the owner of a car in our planet? And who is the `user' of this information
technology? It is worth pointing out that while the EU policy makers are talking
about the IS revolution and the ÔraceÕ between the two main Internet users, the US
and the EU (in 1997, 70 million people were connected to the Internet, twice as many
in the US than in the EU. The gap appears to be closing and at the end of the new
millennium; both areas will have the same numbers of users, approximately 140
million each.) today only 25% of the population of the planet has access to a telephone. Accordingly the PC owners comprise a small fraction of this population,
whereas more than 50% of Internet users live in the ®fteen most developed countries
in the world (Tables 1 and 2).
On the other hand, there are other levels that the EU is not likely to catch up with,
such as business investment in information technologies. In 1997 in the US 55% of
the total investments were in the IT sector compared with the 17% in the EU. In
Greece, investment in the ICT sector is of the lowest in Europe with 0.63% of the
GDP.
Table 1
Top 15 countries in PCs-in-use worldwide at year-end 1998
Rank
Country
PCs-in-use (millions)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
US
Japan
Germany
UK
France
Canada
Italy
China
Australia
South Korea
Spain
Russia
Brazil
Netherlands
Mexico
129.0
32.80
21.10
18.25
15.35
11.75
10.55
8.26
7.68
6.65
5.71
5.63
5.20
5.13
4.60
Total
Total
Total
Top 15 countries
Europe
Worldwide
287.8
112.1
364.4
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
109
Table 2
Top 15 countries in internet usage per capita, 1997
Rank
Country
Internet users per 1000 people (millions)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Finland
Norway
Iceland
US
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
Sweden
Singapore
Denmark
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Netherlands
Hong Kong
Japan
244.5
231.1
227.3
203.4
178.0
155.9
148.9
147.3
141.2
125.6
107.1
99.5
88.9
64.9
63.1
Total
Total
Total
Top 15 countries
Europe
Worldwide
148.5
44.1
16.9
It is obvious from the above that the already developed countries are leading the
race and at the same time they are the ones pro®ting the most, a pro®t that simultaneously reinforces the widening of the gap between the information-rich and information-poor nations. In order to fully appreciate the complications of this
phenomenon, it is vital that attention is paid to the signi®cance of the IS in the
market through the following ®gures (see Figs. 1±5). Information and information
technology constitute the future means of production: it is estimated that in 1996
electronic commerce (e-commerce) reached $1.1 billion, while the most conservative
estimates for the year 2000 predict that e-commerce will reach the amount of $13.6
billion and in the year 2005 the amount of $1 trillion. Furthermore, at the end of
1998, 48% of America On-Line Internet provider customers have made purchases
using the Internet (Tetradia Oikonomias, 1999).
A new service in the net is the Internet Protocol telephone services that cost less
(in the UK, 70% less) than the conventional ones. This service is expected to capture
36% of the international telephone calls market by the year 2003, putting in danger
one of the main sources of income for the conventional telecommunication industries
(Tetradia Oikonomias, 19 April 1999). All these services create an ever increasing
pressure in the telecommunication infrastructure which is unable to keep up with
copper networks of 56 Kbps maximum capacity. The digitisation of these networks
improves the quality of the services but not their capacity to carry more information.
In the EU the solution seems to be the ISDN networks with a total capacity of 128
Kbps, as well as the expansion of ®bre optics, digital subscription lines DSL and the
110
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
Fig. 1.
use of satellites. The prospects of the telecommunications industry become obvious if
we look at the mergers of di€erent business sectors. The new developments in the IS
are in favour of the big conglomerates, while they may prove disastrous for smaller
Fig. 2.
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
111
Fig. 3.
companies and the public sector. In order to stand the pressure and at the same time
compete in the international market with AT&T, Deutsche Telekom recently invested $18 billion in order to be able to o€er all its services through the Internet. In
Fig. 4.
112
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
Fig. 5.
April 1999 the Deutsche Telekom announced its intention to merge with Telecom
Italia. If this happens, they will create a telecoms-giant with a market capitalisation
of about $175 billion and 300,000 employees (The Economist, 1999, p. 69). It is
interesting to note that three out of the ten biggest mergers or buy-outs of companies
in general take place in the telecommunications sector. It is doubted that smaller
national telecommunication organisations such as the public Greek Telecommunications Organisation (OTE) can compete and survive in highly competitive and
extremely deregulated international markets.
Further on in the public sector, a very small percentage of the Greek doctors are
using IT ± only 20% ± when the ®gure is as high as 80% for Germany and France
and 90% for UK. Out of 143 general hospitals and 173 small municipal ones in
Greece only 15 of them use computers, mainly as word processors, and not for the
purposes of telemedicine. In the education sector things are not better. Until the end
of 1996, 1187 out of 1777 high-schools used computers for educational purposes but
most of them were of second and third generation computers (286, 386) that are
unable to support new programmes or sophisticated software for the introduction
of the IS.
Do consumers from peripheral countries pro®t from the IS services? Not today,
is the answer taken from data on the situation in Greece. The main problem in
Greece, also observed in a di€erent scale but in the same form in Africa and other
developing countries, is that the services of the IS are much more expensive than
the ones o€ered in the developed countries. Also adding the di€erence of the average salaries in these countries the results are tragic. In Greece the prices are ®ve
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
113
times higher than the ones in Sweden, four times higher than the ones in Finland
and three times higher than the ones in UK. On top of these di€erences we have to
add the fact that the average income in Greece is 69% of the EU average. The
Greek population (especially the non-privileged parts) will be forced to stay out of
the IS. (Tetradia Oikonomias, 19 April 1999). At the same time further ISDN
services in Greece are in an embryonic stage. Only 330 customers have required
ISDN services. Of these 36% of the subscribers are involved with foreign companies
and 28% are subsidiaries of foreign companies. Besides, a signi®cant part of those
connected, 37%, have not yet used the services because of a serious lack of ISDN
equipment and lack of information o€ered by the provider, the Greek Telecom
(OTE) (Gaglia and Yannelis, 1998, p. 262). Of the 330, only 3% are private customers, that is not connected with companies. Furthermore prices are very high
estimated to be 2.5 times higher than the international average and 25% more
expensive than a basic telephone line. Furthermore, the rapid development and
availability of di€erent kinds of devices create problems of technical compatibility
and cost. It is estimated that in 1994 investing in hardware, depending on the sophistication of the system cost between $3700 to $18,000 in the States. To this one
must also add service charges (Fortner, 1995, p. 143). It is evident that investment
of this cost can only be considered by high income groups. Low income groups
cannot have access to alternative sources of information and ®nd themselves in a
disadvantaged situation, even if they have access to television and telephone. The
reason for this is that the sources of information theoretically available, are signi®cantly reduced on the practical level for strata with low purchase power. Similarly even the use of lower cost forms of communication, such as cable or satellite
TV, fax-machines, VCRs and mobile phones is restricted to a great extent to the
people who can a€ord these extra costs, and for businesses. In daily life, for low
income classes, such as manual workers, unemployed and homeless and people who
live under the poverty line new technologies are of secondary importance since
basic needs have to be met ®rst.
4. Further exclusion: pleonastic and ascetic excommunication
Exclusion of information from various sources of information, such as satellite
television channels or Internet sources, is class speci®c. The immediate consequences
of this phenomenon are the handicap of people in their role as citizens, being de facto
denied access to all available information. Only 12% of the Greek population uses a
PC in their everyday life ± compared to 56.7% in Denmark ± while only 2.9% are
connected to the Internet ± compared to 39.6% in Sweden (INRA, 1999). Similarly
the use of other information technologies such as fax is low with just 2.6% compared
to 7.8 in former East Germany and 13.8% in Luxembourg (ibid.). It is also evident
that ascetic excommunication is directly relevant to peopleÕs interest in new technologies. In Greece the interest to use the Internet as source of information is the
114
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
lowest in Europe with approximately 4% of the population choosing it as preferred
source compared to 22% in Sweden (Standard Eurobarometer 49). This data should
be compared to 76% viewership of television news ± one of the highest in Europe ±
and 32% of newspapers readership ± one of the lowest in Europe (ibid.). It seems that
people are not so much interested in new sources of information other than those
available in traditional forms, or at least they are not as interested as the industrial
and governmental prophecies claim them to be. EU citizens do not want to receive
information via the new IS technologies, rather they show a strong preference to the
traditional media (ibid.) (see Table 3).
At the same time ascetic excommunication resulting from an overload of information becomes clear when we compare the amount of time spent on consumption
of media with other activities such as sleeping and working. Increasing the amount
of information will mean that people will have to drop some sources in order to
concentrate on others. Americans spend up to 9 h per day with the media compared
to 8 h of sleep. That is 3256 h a year of which 4 h a day of television, 36 min of
recorded music, 28 min of newspaper compared to 1824 h on the job (Fortner, 1995,
p. 138). Greeks spend 4 h a day or 1307 h a year with television ± consumption of
other media is not included ± compared to similar patterns of work and sleep (AGB,
1999).
5. The question of IS opportunity cost
More recently (May 1999), in order to show the future power of IS, four `human
guinea pigs' have volunteered to be locked up virtually naked, ``equipped'' only with
a computer and a credit card each, in an attempt to discover the e€ectiveness of the
Internet as a market factor. The project organised by Microsoft's msn.co.uk webpage envisages that the cyber-adventurers will be locked in separate rooms for 100 h
and will have to rely exclusively on the Internet to feed, clothe, communicate and
entertain themselves. The volunteers would also try to continue living their everyday
lives, one plans to play chess while another aims to ®nd a job. The ultimate goal is to
``put the current Internet services to the test and see if it really is possible to survive
with nothing but the Web and a credit card'' (BBC News, 1999). But while the industry of the IS is working on Ôsurvival ISÕ projects, even the proponents of the IS
recognise that there are certain dangers from IS. The di€erence is that they mainly
concentrate on the problems deriving from not introducing the IS fast enough or
fully. We would like to focus on the dangers of the introduction of the new IS
technologies. The most signi®cant consequence of the inequality in the IS is increasing the Knowledge±Information Gap between di€erent groups in the society
and between societies from the centre ± developed world and periphery and developing countries. In order for the IS to improve living standards, people will need to
have the appropriate education in order to transform the tools of IS into productive
professional or recreational solutions. But here we are facing a new issue. The fact
a
Spontaneous response/Reponse spontanee.
20
16
14
12
7
7
5
61
19
31
16
2
2
3
27
28
13
10
9
7
2
53
33
38
11
1
3
4
L
I
1. Depliant
2. Brochure
3. Livre
4. Cassette video
5. Sur Internet
6. CD-ROM
7. Terminal ordinateur
8. Television
9. Radio
10. Journaux quotidiens
11. Autre presse
12. Ne souhaite pas dÕinfo sur IÕUE
13. Sous aucune de ces formes
14. Ne sait pas
20
31
15
7
24
10
5
64
32
36
14
1
1
1
20
37
7
11
6
6
3
61
33
36
14
9
3
2
1. Short lea¯et
2. Brochure
3. Book
4. Video tape
5. On the Internet
6. CD-ROM
7. Computer terminal
8. Television
9. Radio
10. Daily newspapers
11. Other press
12. Does not want EU infoa
13. None of these waysa
14. DonÕt know
DK
B
EB 50.0
West
31
34
5
10
19
18
6
49
22
42
16
2
2
2
NL
17
30
6
4
5
6
3
54
22
44
16
6
3
5
21
33
11
8
6
8
4
44
28
33
14
9
2
2
A
20
30
6
4
5
6
3
55
23
45
16
5
3
4
D
East
14
12
15
8
7
3
4
69
18
21
11
8
3
2
P
29
31
7
5
4
6
2
57
31
46
17
4
2
3
29
25
10
7
17
5
5
57
26
43
17
1
1
1
FIN
18
27
19
3
8
3
2
74
20
23
5
3
2
0
GR
33
28
12
9
22
11
8
56
27
45
13
2
1
2
S
8
24
13
7
5
4
3
59
27
33
8
7
3
5
E
18
23
9
10
10
5
2
51
17
33
11
5
3
5
UK
21
34
15
8
6
5
3
55
23
29
14
4
2
3
F
19
26
11
8
8
6
4
56
22
35
14
5
2
3
EU15
30
22
11
9
8
2
4
49
30
30
8
5
1
4
IRL
Table 3
Preferred method for receiving information ± results in % by country (Full question text on previous page). Supports dÕinformation preferes ± Resultats
en % par pays (Texte complet de la question en page precedente)
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
115
116
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
that the education gap between groups with di€erent social and economic status is
widening due to the introduction of the IS under the current circumstances. The
dangers of social isolation and exclusion due to the inability to use the new tools of
the IS are very real. Millions of unemployed who are not able to join the work force
anymore because they are not accustomed with the changes, are becoming part of
the losers of the IS. Organised crime through e-commerce, harmful content in the
Internet and hate speech are areas that cause controversial reactions from the policymakers. Furthermore there is much doubt if culture, seen as a market product like
any other, will bene®t from the deregulation of the telecommunication and audio±
visual industries, as small cultures run the danger of becoming dissident or extinct
(still today the servers of the European Commission are not able to read Greek fonts,
thus forcing the Greeks who want to write directly to the EU to use a degraded
language called Greek-lish-Greek language with Latin fonts). Thus, we believe that
while the IS industry can continue its fancy Ôscience-®ctionÕ type of projects, academics and policy makers need not to follow them in the frenzy race of impressions.
Instead, research needs to be introduced on what is the ÔOpportunity CostÕ of the IS.
This should come as no surprise since more than one in six of the worldÕs population
cannot meet basic survival needs (Yeomans, 1999, p. 38). Communication technologies can hardly be regarded as a priority under such circumstances. What else can
be done for the education in Greece with the same investments? What can be done
for the underprivileged, unemployed or people with low socio-economic status with
this money instead of the promotion of the IS? What are we missing in the area of
culture by diverting money to the IS? What is the cost of the promotion of the hate
speech in the Internet and the assistance o€ered to the organised crime through
e-commerce?
6. EU policy and provision: claims and doubts about the IS
Theoretically the possibilities of communication have never been more extended
than now. Information appears to be the moving force behind these developments
and the necessary ingredient for all this to make sense. The production of goods as
well as services are increasingly becoming knowledge-based. However as we observed above, the speed of introduction of ICTs varies between countries, regions,
sectors, industries and enterprises. The bene®ts, in the form of prosperity and the
costs, in the form of burden of change, are unevenly distributed between di€erent
parts of the Union and between citizens. First immediate concerns regarding the
e€ects of the information society regard unemployment and accessibility. On a
macro-level concerns about democracy, accountability and equality arise. Will the
complexity and cost of the new technologies not widen the gaps between industrialised and less developed areas, between the young and the old, between those with
know-how and those without? Policies in the EU about the Information Society
began with expert reports and action plans, that were distributed to maintain contact
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
117
with interest groups. Instead of maintaining contact with public interest groups, the
EU programme has been mainly shaped by bureaucrats and industrial corporate
interests (Schneider, 1997, p. 350). Since 1986 a series of projects and liberalising
measures for telecommunications reached the ``high point'' of the White Paper on
Growth, Competitiveness and Employment ± The Challenges and Ways Forward
into the 21st Century (EC, 1993) that regarded the IS as the key-factor for growth.
This resulted in the report known as ``Bangemann Report'' in 1994 conducted by a
group of industrialists co-ordinated by Commissioner Bangemann, that proposed
liberalising measures for open telecommunication markets. The main measure
proposed was to leave the telecommunications sector to the private sector while
governmental funding was proposed not to be limited to non-pro®t organisations.
The policy initiatives taken until now within the European Union concentrate on the
economic potential of the new technology, whereas provisions for the safeguarding
of the protection of citizens and consumers are still in an embryonic stage, without
any clear evidence that this will change. What characterises policy documents is the
dedication to neoliberalist discourses that seek to legitimate control over the production and distribution of new technologies. The Green Paper ``working and living
in the Information Society'' attempts to bring under focus key issues such as
the organisation of work, employment and social cohesion. The rhetoric of
``challenge'' however distracts attention away from the social implications of the
IS. It presupposes that the commercial uses of technology constitute the most
important and main area for regulatory provision. Aims are limited in raising
awareness of the potential of the new paradigm of work organisation for maximising competitiveness (Ch. 3), intensifying human resource investment and transforming the education system (Ch. 4). The Green Paper states that the liberalisation
of telecommunications should proceed fully and rapidly across the Union and that
the new regulatory framework should support cohesion objectives (EC, 1997,
Ch. 4). Again, the document remains vague when attempting to give a humanist
perspective in the provision of regulation for the IS, while at the same time
repeats the same claims for wealth creation, higher living standards and
improvement of services. The Economic and Social Committee criticised the lack of
commitment on behalf of the European Commission towards a more holistic
evaluation of the new technologies and stated that it ``regrets that [the European
Commission] focuses too little attention on ICTÕs impact on daily life [...] without
any speci®c suggestions as to how to remedy the situation'' (CES, 1997). In 1999 the
®nal report on the public consultation (consisted of 80 organisations mostly representing private interests) reveals the main concerns of access to networks and
gateways facilities as a factor in securing e€ective competition and the need for
homogenisation of regulation regarding transport network infrastructure. The aims
are identi®ed as the facilitation of free market regime, reach of audiences, (EC,
1999b) while earlier in the same year discussion about the form of provisions
were made on accessibility, in terms of service providers, to government information
and mediation (EC, 1999a). The Commission calls upon the example of the United
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States and the ``Freedom of Information Act'' in 1966 where governmental information is available to the citizens, through private service providers, free of
charge or for a very small fee.
It is however interesting to note some changes regarding public information: the
latter available free from libraries or government agencies becomes very expensive
when purchased from a computerised service. In the States an annual subscription to
the Federal Code of Regulations costs $21,750 in electronic form and $400 in
printed. Similarly the Federal Reserve BoardÕs quarterly reports on the ®nancial
performance of banks used to be free whereas now it costs $500 a piece in electronic
version (Fortner, 1995, p. 143). Euphoric statements and intensi®ed interest in creating the circumstances for competitive growth of the new technologies constitute
the dominant debate that surrounds the phenomenon named the ``information society''. This gives rise to a certain approach of regulating provisions about the IS. It
is often the case that major issues of concern are not given necessary attention.
Drawing on technological potential as described above, the Fifth Framework Programme for research and development concentrates mainly on the ``marketability''
and the ``hardware'' of a whole new system of technologies. While stating as its
primary aim to ``help companies operate more eciently'' its provision for the public
is limited in the promotion of ``user-friendly'' technologies, missing out totally the
bigger issue of inequality and the consequences of this, as these will be discussed
further on (EC, 1999a,b). The convergence in the ®eld of tools accessing and processing information and content is itself regarded as critical to EuropeÕs competitiveness and quality of life (EC, 1999a,b).
According to the European Commission the new conditions can be successfully
dealt with through a series of actions to stimulate productivity and the expansion
of the use of technology through user-friendly technical means. The promises for
bene®ts for the whole of society, generated and sustained as such by industrialists,
technocrats and politicians, are used as the theoretical base or even the ``utopia''
that is called to justify astronomical expenditures and often one-sided (de)regulation. A ``brave new world'' of technology is supposed to transform peopleÕs lives
mainly through the use of speedy telecommunications that would provide access to
a range of di€erent products, from teleworking, transactions, and news coverage to
teleshopping. However are these promises of wealth and prosperity for the citizens
of Europe today; regarding the potential of the information society, any more
realistic than the ones made at any point of technological innovation? Similar the
arguments were made surrounding the use of telephone, in the beginning of the
century, having predicted that communication between employers and employees
through it would create a more democratic workplace. There has not been any
evidence of that claim as there is very little that would justify an optimistic forecast
of the consequences of the IS. In fact a series of problems gives rise to doubts
about the validity of such claims. ICTs are already an integral part of daily life,
providing tools and services at home and workplace. The Information Society is
not a vision far away in the future, but a reality in daily life. Accessibility to the
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
119
new technologies, training, active rather than passive participation of the citizens
are some of the main areas of concern. All these issues have a common nominator:
information. This can be in the form of entertainment where television dramas and
comedies provide an interpretation of the dominant values and ideas of society, to
news coverage and comments provided by traditional means such as the press.
Information about prices or events, developments or discussion for can be processed and transmitted via conventional or mobile phones, the Internet, satellite or
cable television, fax machines, electronic post. The central word ``Information''
concerns not only transmitted data but also data about the use of the new technologies and information about their hardware that would lead to further development. The new avenues of transmission have the ability to interact with each
other, therefore changing the until now clearly de®ned roles of sender and receiver.
The boundaries between the di€erent expressions of technology have also become
of indistinct shape.
7. Through the looking glass: knowledge and the dual society knowledge and work
Information creates knowledge. Knowledge cannot be consumed and cannot be
sold the same way a car can. Once produced, knowledge can very easily be copied and
distributed at low cost. The price of knowledge is very dicult to de®ne, since it is
invisible and purchasers have to buy ®rst in order to realise the content of their
purchase (Morris-Suzuki, 1997, p. 62). Intellectual property and copyrights are ways
with which neoliberal economists try to overcome the diculties of de®ning knowledge as a market product. Knowledge is also dicult to measure. In capitalism one
way has been to distinguish between skilled and unskilled labour, manual and
intellectual labour. Therefore, as soon as knowledge (considered as ``skill'') becomes
part of the labour sold on an hourly basis by a worker, it becomes a commodity,
whose value remains inde®nite. The reason for this is that skills gained cannot be
measured in terms of time invested or ways in which they were gained: these can be
gained through formal training, formal education, within a given period of time in.
Most social skills however are gained through informal processes, inde®nite time, and
through unpaid labour such as child-rearing. Until now, the economic system has
been based on material accumulation while at the same time an increase in knowledge
has been taking place in various areas such as the sciences. Knowledge builds upon
knowledge, this is why there are no real technological ``breakthroughs'': technological
development is a continuous process. Knowledge therefore has not been a formal
commodity ± not until the 1980s. It is the combination and interrelation of material
production and knowledge that changed the situation. On these grounds much
analysis rede®nes contemporary societies as ``information societies'' and the economy
as ``post-industrial economy'' (Stonier, 1983, p. 21). Some characteristics of the postindustrial society are the shift towards a service economy rather than a manufacturing
one, credit-based transactions rather than cash, transnational character and ®nally
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the decline of the labour force as one dominated by people who work with machines
and the subsequent rise of the information operators (Stonier, 1983, p. 31). If manual
labour has been the core economic factor, the exchange value for accumulation of
capital that served as the basis of capitalism in modernity, then it is apparent that this
is now being replaced by information. Availability of and access to information,
combined with the ability to analyse and evaluate information, are the new elements
of power in western societies. Many studies are concerned with the end of labour as
we know it. ``The end of work'' by Jeremy Rifkin, the ``jobless future'' by Stanley
Aronowitz and William DiFazio or ``shifting time'' by Armine Yalnizyan, T. Ran Ide
and Arthur J. Cordell all explore the change of the nature of work, projecting the
replacement of full-time work with part-time jobs, the extension of the working day,
instability and the growing gap between information or ``knowledge'' workers and the
masses of the unemployed (Davis and Stack, 1997, pp. 133±134). These studies
contradict the predictions of the high level group of experts of the European Community and policy documentation produced until now. Recall the estimations of the
EC of 2,000,000 jobs by the end of the millennium, the creation of new jobs, even if it
is realistically estimated and proclaimed in surveys and other policy documents, does
not necessarily mean less unemployment. The claims for new jobs do not provide
evidence of the latter nor do they provide a clear pro®le of the work situation in
Europe at the moment. Jobs, such as in teleshopping services, are mainly part-time
and unstable, with questionable social bene®ts, such as the provision of pension,
health care or education. Other questions also remain open, such as if the new jobs
will replace others and in what pace.
8. Work and lifelong learning
The new nature of work in the Information Society creates new needs for
training and the procurement of speci®c kinds of knowledge. Lifelong learning is
presented as an imperative of the information society, placed on the very top of the
priority scale in regulatory provisions. The central force and main characteristic of
the information society is its nature as a ``Learning Society'' (EC, 1997) where
education and skill acquisition are a lifelong process starting from school and
continuing ``at work and at home'' (ibid.). According to Kroker and Weinstein,
lifelong learning is a central ideological apparatus ± a discourse for the promotion
of the economic order now based on knowledge, gained through formal procedures. The quality of the required ``learning'' of the required knowledge has very
speci®c characteristics. It is knowledge concentrated on instrumental learning,
limited to managerial and technical courses, where human subjectivity and human
experience are diminished (Falk, 1999). ``Clonal'' workers in Canada are provided
lifelong learning opportunities through compulsory, short-term on-the-job training
(Falk, 1999). Such training as well as other courses, are usually funded by the
individual and by the workers themselves, instead of by the employer. Neither is it
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
121
the case that the new structures of learning will have a liberating e€ect, as education is usually expected to. Kroker and Weinstein (1994), Boshier (1997) and
Falk (1999) all point out this has the commercial reconstruction of education and
the consequences to individual freedom. Learning becomes compulsory and instrumental: those who are not able to, or who do not want to adapt, will be rejected from the work process. Disadvantaged social strata will remain
disadvantaged, especially those people who are not ``¯exible'' enough such as the
elderly, the long term unemployed or people who have not been exposed to education for very long period if at all. Furthermore, the last vestiges of freedom to
choose not to acquire education at all or one under the described circumstances,
disappear in the light of the consequences that this would have: the radical reduction of life chances. The necessity of obtaining new skills while de-valuing
knowledge and skills becomes increasingly a new condition that applies to all but
the wealthy. Typical characteristic in Greece constitutes the emergence of uncontrolled private training schools and colleges of further education to cover for
training demand. The annual fees for such courses are much higher than the annual
income of an industrial worker, while the degrees or certi®cates enjoy no ocial
recognition from the Greek state.
9. The emergence of new classes?
Despite the claims for the creation of a new society, based on freedom and equal
access to information and therefore to knowledge, evidence on a global scale shows
quite the opposite. In the early 1970s a theory that concentrated on knowledge
di€erences in society based on the use of the media was very in¯uential. Introduced
in an article in the 1970s by Tichenor, Donohue and Olien, the knowledge-gap
hypothesis predicted that the gap between people of low and people of higher
socio-economic status would increase. Already privileged classes would gain more
knowledge based on additional information as opposed to those from less well-o€
strata (Severin and Tankard, 1992, pp. 232±233). Since then, various studies have
identi®ed several parameters that in¯uence the outcome of knowledge-based inequality. Tichenor et al. themselves distinguished between acquiring knowledge
over time and at a given point in time, whereby acquisition of knowledge proceeds
faster among better-educated people and even the correlation between education
and understanding is higher for more publicised information, retrospectively
(Tichenor et al., 1970; Severin and Tankard, 1992). Also, the authors found out
that widening gaps are more likely to occur in pluralistic communities, with numerous sources of information, like the one advocated by the EUÕs IS (Tichenor et
al., 1975 op. cit. ibid.). Taken into consideration the phenomenon of excommunication as described by Fortner it becomes obvious that the qualitative application
o f the IS bears under the given organisation of the economic system the causes of
further and new social inequalities. Some authors drew attention to the fact that,
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especially in the case of public a€airs, the knowledge-rich people, due to their involvement, are more likely to become even richer (Bishop et al., 1978). A number
of interacting factors in¯uence the knowledge-gap: one factor is information
availability. This might mean that governmental documents are not made available
to the public. Accessibility is the other side of availability and forms one of the
main concerns regarding the information society. The nature and quality of the
information received and processed also matters: is the information more about
issues of personal interest or public a€airs? Understanding and the ability to
evaluate and analyse information depends heavily on factors such as educational
status, knowledge background and social interaction. The ``wired'' societies of the
supranational EU and the Clinton±Gore administration have very little in common
with the unemployed masses ± in Greece around 12%, in Germany 10% ± and the
homeless.
10. Conclusion
Inequality in information and therefore knowledge acquisition creates further
divisions in society between social groups. The basis of these di€erences lies in the
economic structure that creates powerful and vulnerable strata de®ned by availability or exclusion from information. Groups of higher income are guaranteed
access to technologies therefore strengthening their position as users. At the same
time the knowledge levels of these groups can increase and so can their ``marketability''. Apart from the economic classes in the orthodox, although perhaps
problematic, sense of the word, the gap in information and knowledge increases
with the introduction of new technologies, and with the subsequent emergence of
new classes. If we were to de®ne the form of these classes we would have to take
into consideration three factors: access to, ability to process and ability to analyse
information. As mentioned above, many thinkers are declaring the end of the
work as we know it, in other words the end of the manual labourer. Castells
(1996) and more than a decade ago Stonier (1983) identify information as the
current and future commodity and knowledge deriving from that as the replacement of manual productivity. Globalisation of the economy no longer conceives
national orders, while transnational movement of capital and investment becomes
the main characteristic. This form of organisation within the economy has created
the need for particular occupations that re¯ect the necessary ¯exibility for international capital. It nominates a new class of highly educated workers who are able
to process and understand the information, that is necessary for quick decisions
on transactions and investments, in other words the ``symbolic analysts'' (Webster
and Robins, 1998, pp. 28±29). To Castells (from a di€erent point of view but with the
same focus on the emergence of the new class) it is the development of ``horizontal
corporations'' that need the new class of ``self-programmable labour'' (Castells,
1996, p. 195) ready to apply the principles of ``lifelong learning'', that is to de-and-re-
K. Sarikakis, G. Terzis / Telematics and Informatics 17 (2000) 105±128
123
skill themselves, and adapt and follow the economic trends. The class of ``symbolic
analysts'' (symbolic because they are expected to analyse abstract information) or
``self-programmable labour'' are the haves of knowledge and will survive or even
climb up the managerial stair. The have-nots of knowledge fall even lower than
before, since now, even their labour is no longer marketable: those who cannot afford to, or do not wish to be so ¯exible, are either condemned to long-term unemployment or to jobs that do not o€er any reward other than extended hours and an
insecure future. A third category are the social strata right at the bottom of the scale,
the homeless. The gap between them and the new emerging class that owes its position
to ``education, expertise and the centrality of knowledge'' (Touraine and Bell op cit. in
Webster and Robins, 1998, p. 34) is only getting wider. ``The homeless are not wired''.
The propertiert class can ensure its survival in the information society, in that it remains advantaged in the educational system and is able to produce the technological
elites, the ``virtual class'' according to Barbrook and Cameron (1996 op cit. in
Webster and Robins, 1998, p. 38; Kroker and Weinstein, 1994a). The working class is
grounded in localised space (Kroker and Weinstein, 1994a) while all the symbolic
analysts, who are ``problem-identi®ers, problem-solvers and strategic-brokers'' need,
is an international airport and a networked computer. Regardless of the variety of
names used to categorise societal groups in the new occupational structure and regardless of their origins there seems to be a consensus among scholars regarding the
information society. This is the change in the occupational structures, the role of
information and consequently knowledge in the new order and ®nally the emergence
of new classes based on the knowledge levels required by the global economies. Information is becoming ``tradable'' and is increasingly being left to the market
(Murdock and Golding, 1989). The signs of unemployed masses, dispossessed groups,
uninformed citizens and outdated consumers have already been identi®ed as a
problem, something that can be found underlying the ocial documents of the European Union and the opinions expressed by the high-level experts group as well as in
the concerns of the European Parliament. Still the policies that claim to guarantee
harmonisation and deal with these issues systematically remain unfocused on the
consequences that a dual society would have not just in the immediate future in terms
of displaced and confused individuals, but in the fundamental structure of the
democratic system. Alienated and disinterested masses do not make involved citizens.
Perhaps this is one reason for the low participation ± the lowest ever-in the election
for the European Parliament in June 1999.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Aine
Haslam and Lynn McLauchlan, who are happy to
be who they are, and for proof-reading parts of this article. We would also like to say
``thank you'' to Nes and Alex for keeping us sane.
124
Appendix
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